May it be well with thee

My softbound copy of The Desert Fathers, the one that I found by accident in a small bookstore in Edmonton, is finally falling apart. It takes both hands to hold on to it to keep the pages from all falling out on to the floor. Maybe it's time to buy another, but this one will always remain in my ‘covenant box’ along with the first copy I ever owned of The Way of a Pilgrim, which was Fr Ihor's own personal copy, which he gave to me. It too fell apart and is held together with binder clamps.

Here follows one of my favorite stories from The Desert Fathers, pp. 152-153. If you know me, you'll understand why…

CXXVII. Once when the abbot Macarius was climbing up the mountain in Nitria, he bade his disciple go a little way before him. And as he went on ahead, he met a priest of the idols, hurrying swiftly, carrying a great log. And the disciple shouted at him, ‘Whither so fast, devil?’ At which the irate priest beat him so soundly that he left him half dead: and again hurried on his way.

A little further on, he met the blessed Macarius, who said to him, ‘May it be well with thee, O toiler, may it be well!’ The priest, in surprise, said, ‘What good dost thou see in me that thou shouldst wish me well?’ To which the old man made answer, ‘Because I see thee toiling and hasting, thou knowest not why.’

And the priest said, ‘And I, moved by thy salutation, knew thee for a great servant of God: now some other miserable monk, I know not who, met me and threw insults at me, but I gave him back blows for words.’ Then, seizing the feet of the blessed Macarius, he cried to him, ‘Unless thou makest me a monk, I shall not let thee go.’

So taking the road together they came to the place where the stricken brother lay, whom they both lifted up, and as he could not walk, they carried him in their arms to the church. But when the brethren saw the priest in company with the blessed Macarius they were dumbfounded: and in wonderment they made him a monk, and because of him many pagans were made Christian.

And the abbot Macarius would say, ‘that a proud and ill speech would turn good men to evil, but a good and humble speech would turn evil men to better.’